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As for the question about "Why would I use waypoints when I have checkpoints? What's the big idea?"... I'd say it's because checkpoints would be more of something you use to progress the game (as you get new checkpoint, it overwrites the last checkpoint you got so you can't just get to anywhere you want with checkpoints. Waypoints will probably be the main tool of going back to places you've already explored.

Honestly, only from what we saw in the gameplay trailer:




I think they did a really good job with the inventory. I don't think the icons are too small (also notice that items that you actually wear get their icon resized to bigger) and if they will make them bigger... well I just fear there won't be enough room in the log to show everything... and then we'll have to mess around with bags... you know... changing bags and not being able to see the whole inventory at once, I find that annoying. If they make the icons bigger and just give you less room, it's fine, because it's challenging and you actually have to pick up only stuff that are worth picking up. Anyway, from the way it looks now... I think it's awesome. The only thing I can point out that is not so good is the upper layout of the inventory which includes a shiney colorful baggy I find it stupid ^^ but really, minor issue, good job Blizzard.

Quote from "gamma11" »

Omg Did Anyone Else Notice That The Homo Green Lighting Is Gone From The Screenshots? Tehre Is Still Hope!

HELL YES I DID!!! I was shocked too!!! It looks ALOT better!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I'm so happy, it looks alot less like WoW now. Plus, I think there is slightly more blood and gore... This made my day!!!

Quote from "waddlez" »

so you guys bitch about Diablo taking some things from WoW, but if they take it from a horrible game you would be excited?

hypocrites

What are you talking? I was never bitching around about taking stuff from WoW... I just personally think that death panelty in WoW is a not-so-good one. So far, from what we already know, Diablo 3 has yet to take anything from WoW except from the art style. Everything they took so far was actually from the previous games of diablo so please stop bitching about the bitches...

Quote from "akse" »

There was a MUD I played where if you died you were sent to nether world, where you had to sense/find your souls, good and evil part of them. When you merged with them your exp loss was cut down severly and you were sent back to the world.

I think this type of approach could be nice for softcore, you either spend some time finding the souls or lose a lot more exp. The nether world could also be visually entertaining.. you could find some old heroes lost souls there etc.

Now that's what I mean when I say "Interactive Penalty". To be honset what akse said reminds of the FPS game "Prey", where you have a few seconds to strike souls (Red ones for Health and Blue ones for Energy) when you die and when the time's up, you are sent back to the normal world with as much health and mana that you managed to catch... although the feature was executed horribly in that game... there is alot of room for improvements in that concept.

But on the other hand... the problem is that Diablo's universe do not support the concept of "Afterlife", "Realm of the dead" or that kind of stuff. Plus I think that a minigame like that could get boring in time if it doesn't vary.

Quote from "Veltras" »

I don't die often either but all this is stupid. You know what people do on bnet? They quit and reenter the game to get their corpse back then someone tp them and they're back on their feet before they even know it. I prefer having to suffer higher penalties as long as they keep the pace of the game fast. Besides it's likely that you won't be able to cast tp while fighting monsters so those checkpoints are indeed going to be important to keep the pace fast.

Hmmm... you're right. I really didn't take that trick into consideration, sorry. I was thinking of single player where the game ends when you leave it, while in Battle.net, even if you leave and right after that enter the game again, you will most of the times succeed in getting in before the game closes. So yeah... that really is a flaw. Though I still prefer having that kind of interactive penalty, and not some stupid thing like percentage reduction to health and mana (Like in Guild Wars).

Quote from "Veltras" »

Why would I have to create a new game because I can't get my corpse back

Because you died right in a middle of a demon fest without being alittle more careful, that's why. Of course, if you died because of something stupid... like if you died in a place with low number of enemies because you forgot to drink potion or you had a lag, it would be very easy for you to recover your corpse, but if you died surrounded by monsters that were strong enough to kill you before you were able to react, you deserve a game restart. To be honest, that didn't happen for me alot of times, not even when I played though Hell in Single Player.

I wanted to bring the Hardcore issue.

Let's say that death penalty can vary in harshness. While Diablo 2's death penalty has an average level of death penalty harshness, Diablo 2 Hardcore had a maximum level of death penalty harshness (Losing your character if you die). This idea was good because a player could choose how harsh the game will be, BUT when it comes to Battle.net, the communities had to be seperated to Hardcore and Softcore, this made the community very small because Hardcore players couldn't reach Softcore players. So Hardcore should be removed from battle.net, but not from Single Player.

And about the normal death penalty... and that's my opinion: I think Diablo 2's system was awesome... The only stupid thing was the loss of gold which made the gold even more useless than what it was (Your gold was not even safe in your Stash!). Everything else was awesome. The loss of experience which increased as you progressed, the fact that you have to reach your corpse while avoiding the actual thing that killed you on first place and if you are surrounded by hordes of demons, you're done for So anyway... only the gold panelty sucked and maybe they should also have fixed that bug that people could exploit to steal other people's gear if they fill their inventory and reach their corpse...

Quote from "Urbatect" »

I still fail to understand how cutesy gargoyles make game-play better. Does it make the monsters and players stand out more? Is a number of cute gargoyles less repetitive than the same number of gritty gargoyles?

I agree. I can understand how removing light radus adds to the gameplay with being able to see more from afar. I can also understand how making everything more colorful and bright helps to differ monsters and players from each other. The one thing I still don't understand is how the thing they call "stylizing" adds anything to the gameplay. I'll reply to myself: It doesn't. Making any character wear gigantic unrealistic armors (Something that should maximum be worn by angels), adding ridicules 'cutesy' gorgoyles or even rainbows DO NOT effect gameplay in any way. It doesn't even add anything to the "Making locations look different from each other to keep the game interesting" philosophy. It just makes the game look like Happy Tree Friends (all cute looking, and bloody at the same time).

Stylizing fails.

Overall, It was a good article.

I wasn't sure that the Barbarian in Diablo 3 is actually the same one from Diablo 2. Jay confirmed it in the article. Oh, and don't tell me you all knew about the loot system! I thought that it didn't change, but instead they tell me that there will be loot reservastion!! The times of jumping on dead bosses in hope for uniques are gone?

Also, I have never seen the Witch Doctor's screenshot while he usese Horrify on the first-level Ghouls ... Lastly, I REALLY hope that the game will be released in maximum 1 and a half years, otherwise it will be shipped while I'm in the army... dammit.

I wonder how the wounds system is going to work (about the barbarian wounds in the screenshot... something we didn't have in the 20 mins videos). I mean, does it matter where you get hit, who you get hit by and for how long the marks remain...

I just loved the sentence at the bottom of the interview xD

"Is it too soon to start complaining about the art style of “Diablo IV“?

Priceless ^^

Comes, screw up and leaves. No comment here, really.

Blizzard, are you kidding me? Diablo 3, (the way it is now) graphically looked like it can be played on almost every computer nowadays... so in 1 year, no one on earth will have computer weak enough to not be able to maintain a screen filled with corpses (unless the graphics will improve).

As for too much movement of dead foes... I don't mind having a whole bunch of dead ghouls bouncing (as long as I make them bounce). Even if they move too much... it's always possible to reduce the effect of physics on dead enemies so they won't move too much (I personally won't care if they even lay still and won't move at all). Seriously... it will still be better than vanishing corpses... I know blizzard are trying to make the 3rd game less realistic than the past once and add style to it... but disappearing corpses? They took it WAYYY too far...